LENIN AND KRUPSKAYA TO LENIN’S SISTER ANNA

Published:First published in 1930 in the journalProletarskaya RevolyutsiyaNo. 1.

      Sent from Paris to Alupka (Crimea).

      Printed from 
 the original.Source:Lenin
	  Collected Works,

      Progress Publishers,1977,

      Moscow,Volume 37,

      pages430-431.Translated:The Late George H. HannaTranscription\Markup:D. MorosPublic Domain:Lenin Internet Archive.You may freely copy, distribute,
	display and perform this work, as well as make derivative and
	commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet
	Archive” as your source.•README

May 26, 1909

DearAnyuta,

Ireceived your letter a few days after I had sent a letter
to Mother in Alupka.

Ihave received the book and find that it has been nicely
published. There were no fewer misprints at the end than
at the beginning and the proof-reader’s ignorance of foreign
languages is obvious (the English “A New Name for Old
Ways of
Thinking”[1]has been so distorted that it is
ridiculous),[3]but that is an inevitable and insignificant
shortcoming. On the whole I am satisfied with it. Everyone
complains of the price—and rightly so. In future we shall
have a point in the contract about the price as well as the
number of copies. I was hard pressed by the publisher and
would, in any case, have agreed toanyterms, as long as
the book was published.

Thepublisher has not yet sent any money and I am
beginning to be afraid that he will swindle
us.[4]I have
written to Peres. Will you also please write to the
publisher—three or four weeks have passed and he promised
to pay in a week. (You absolutely must get a promissory
note for the remaining sum.) Please send me the five
hundred rubles that are in the bank (Crédit Lyonnais, Agence Z,
Avenue d’Orléans, 19. Mr. Oulianoff. Current account No.
6420) since I cannot rely on the publisher.

Thingsare bad
here—Spaltung,[2]or rather, there will
be one; I hope that in a month or six weeks I shall be able
to give you exact information. So far I can do no more than
guess.[5]

Manyashais swotting hard. She is quite well and will
probably pass her examinations. What will happen then, I
do not know. I think she wants to go home.

Wehave not yet decided when we shall go to the seaside
or where we shall
go.[6]But this summer we shall go for
certain.

Manykisses for Mother and all the best to you.

Yours,V. Ulyanov

Youasked in your last letter why I do not write. All this
winter I have been in a state of utter melancholy, the time
has been frittered away, I could not work properly and so I
was in no fit state to write. If Manyasha had not written
about Volodya and Volodya about her I should have given
you all the details about them both as I did before, but
apart from that there is nothing to write, we are just jogging
along. Every time they wrote I told them to give you my
regards but I don’t suppose they did. I shall try and write
soon, but in the meantime I send many kisses to you and to
dear Maria Alexandrovna from myself and from Mother.

Yours,Nadya

[1]Stepanovapparently did not look at it at all....—Lenin

[2]Split(Ger.).—Ed.

[3]Leninwas referring to the inaccurate translation of the title of
William James’sPragmatism. A New Name for Some Old Ways
of Thinkingthat he mentions inMaterialism and
Empirio-criticism(seeCollected Works, Vol. 14, p. 342).

[4]Leninreceived royalties for hisMaterialism and Empiric-criticismfrom Krumbügel in full (see his sister Anna’s letter to the editor
ofProletarskaya Revolyutsiyapublished in No. 2-3 of that journal
for 1930).

[5]Leninrefers here to the coming conference of the extendedProletaryeditorial board; it was called on Lenin’s initiative and took
place in Paris from the 21st to the 30th of June (N.S.), 1909. The
conference was attended by nine members of the Bolshevik
centre—the highest body of the Bolshevik group, elected by the
Bolshevik delegates to the 5th (London) Congress of the R.S.D.L.P.,
and also representatives of the St. Petersburg, Moscow Regional
and Urals organisations. The conference proceeded under Lenin’s
guidance and his speeches on all the main points on the agenda
shaped the character of the conference. The theses put forward
by Lenin formed the basis of the decisions adopted by the
conference.

Theconference roundly condemned otzovism and ultimatumism
as harmful and dangerous trends in the working-class movement.
A. Bogdanov, leader and inspirer of the otzovists, ultimatumists
and God-builders, was expelled from the Bolshevik group.

[6]Leninspent late July and August on holiday with his family—-
his wife (N. K. Krupskaya), her mother (Y. V. Krupskaya) and
his sister (M. I. Ulyanova)—in the village of Bombon (Department
de Seine-et-Marne) near Paris.